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Simply put, Baku Baku Animal is as infectuous as e. coli. A puzzler with spunk, it will make for a few sleepless nights. Needlessly, Baku Baku has a tiny plot to introduce the frantic action: a spoiled princess has too many pets, so the king authorizes the hiring of a zoo keeper. You are said zoo keeper.

The premise is simple, match the animal with its appropriate grindage. Bunny to carrot, panda to bamboo, and so forth. This would seem mindless enough, but as always, there's a catch. Baku Baku is a competitive game, so during a one player game, you play against the computer. Once you have made so many matches, or gotten one of the devastating chain reactions, it will dump a flurry of blocks on your opponent (and likewise to you) at the most inopportune of times. Naturally, this can get frustrating--Baku Baku is destined to bring out the most foul language is all of us.

Fully decked-out in colorful, rendered graphics (render me this, polygon me that), Baku Baku is no eye-sore. It's animations are cute, though watching the monkey eat the bananas can prove highly distractive, especially at points where keen attention is required. Music is what you would expect, lively, cutesy tunes--for two reasons. Most puzzle games seem to require this goofy ambient music (although I can't really imagine feeding Omaha's Wild Kingdom to U2), and Sega has this stigma about kindergartenish sing-songy music.

Naturally, a puzzler like Baku Baku doesn't require next-gen hardware to provide a good time, but it's a refreshing alternative to a glut of polygon fighters as racing games. Priced right, although an extra ten bucks off would have made for a much easier sell, Baku Baku is a welcome addition to a puzzler's library. Just watch your language.